A Designer, a Magician

One thing they don’t tell you when you finish Graphic design school is that you are secretly signing an agreement declaring you’re a magician as well.

“Work your magic” and “You’re a designer, you can do things” are things I hear all the time by everyone around me. So I thought I should clear this little misunderstanding we have; for, ladies and gentlemen, I was not aware that my graduation certificate read BA Graphic Design/Magic.

I would like to take this opportunity to get some things straight and clarify a few points about the “Myth of the Graphic Designer”:

The Adobe Realm is two dimensional, we can’t change the angle of a picture; so when I have a photo of the back of a car I can’t snap my fingers and make it magically turn to face me.

2.If a model is wearing a long sleeve shirt and pants, I can’t “work my magic” and give her a wardrobe makeover where she’s suddenly wearing short sleeves and a skirt; only fashion fairies can do that.

3.A low-res pixelated image cannot be modified into a high res clear image with a magic wand (there is a magic wand tool in Photoshop but it’s only for selection use).

4.There is no such thing as a quick quality design, quality designs need time, and unfortunately Adobe hasn’t developed a stop-the-time tool (I would pay money for that).

5.We are neither psychics nor experts in the art of divination. Communication does really work;not just in relationships.

6.Just because it’s pretty, doesn’t mean it’s right. We actually did learn some design rules in college it wasn’t all just magic.

7.Source files are mandatory if you need to edit an image; they come as PSD, AI, EPS; and no that was not a magic spell.

8.Never ask us to duplicate a certain design done by another designer; we Designers are very proud creatures.

So this is it folks, I have cracked down the myth of the graphic designer. If you ever meet the Legendary Graphic Designer who can do all of this, please let me know, it has always been my childhood dream to meet a “desigician”. Until then, my fellow non-magician designer brothers and sisters, do share with us the latest magical requests.